Priorities

EPSU believes that the Luxembourg court ruling, of the 15th of March, condemning the hero of LuxLeaks Antoine Deltour to six months imprisonment and a fine of €1,500 is disgraceful. The verdict confirmed an earlier ruling which also saw Deltour’s co-defendant Halet, have his earlier sentence affirmed.

Commenting on the ruling, EPSU General Secretary Jan Willem Goudriaan said, ‘The acquittal of Edouard Perrin, the journalist that stood on trial, is welcome but as for the two whistleblowers Deltour and Halet this is a disgraceful judgement that cannot be allowed to stand. The spotlight needs to shine on tax dodgers not tax justice heroes.

‘This LuxLeaks verdict highlights the necessity to legally protect whistleblowers with EU-wide legislation, rather than criminalising these courageous individuals. The decision clearly jars with European Court of Human Rights’ case law on whistleblowers’ protection. If the case goes further, we will continue to support Deltour and Halet in their struggle’.

EPSU is a founder member of the Whistleblowers Protection platform, launched in October of last year, with the support of Antoine Deltour. The platform calls on the European Commission to urgently take action on bringing forward a directive for EU-wide legislation on whistleblower protection against any forms of retaliation.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation on whistleblower consultation which will run until the 29th of May to which EPSU will respond in cooperation with other platform members,

According to the trade union federation this ruling also strengthens the need for a full adoption of public country by country reporting (cbcr) measures, which will help expose tax avoidance efforts and reduce public reliance on whistleblowers to find out about industrial corporate tax dodging.